Finding Your Words: SEO Keywords
Products…check, Website…check, Website Traffic….could be better. You could have a great product and website, and still aren’t getting the website visits and conversions you’d like. One factor this could be is due to the lack of SEO (search engine optimization) practices. When thinking of SEO I think about it in three different sections: Keywords, Technical, Customer Facing.
In this post we’ll be focusing on Keywords as they are the foundation for the other two sections.
What are Keywords? Why do I need them?
Keywords are those words or phrases that a potential customer would type into a search engine and would find your store. Say your website sells greeting cards. A keyword could be “birthday card” and a keyword could be “funny corgi birthday card”. Identifying and narrowing down a list of keywords is an important activity to ensure your content throughout your site both on and off page are packing the biggest punch to positively impact your SEO.
How to find keywords
Researching your keywords is when you identify and analyze what your customers search in Google to find your website. When you sit down and do the research you can optimize your website so that it’s more likely to rank higher in Google.
You can find your keywords a few different ways. It could be:
Research keywords on Google Keyword Planner
Look at Google Search Console to see where you are showing up and double down.
Look at Search Suggestions in Search Engines
Research keywords on Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner is a tool through Google Ads where you can enter in a keyword and see the data around that specific keyword. You’ll want to pay attention to how many searches are made on that term every month, if there is an increase or decrease over three months and the competition for the keyword. If a keyword has high competition level that means there are a lot of folks bidding on that keyword with paid ads, which could make it harder to rank organically without ads. It’s great to find keywords that have a decent amount of month searches and a low to medium competition level.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a tool you can use to get detailed information from Google on how your site is performing in terms of traffic. If you haven’t set up Google Search Console you should do that today so you can start getting this data. If you need help getting this set up, let me know and I can help. When in Google Search Console you’ll want to navigate to Performance > Search Results > Queries. This page will show you what people are searching in order to get to your site and/or where you are getting impressions on search results with that keyword. This data is helpful to double down what is giving you traffic.
Look at Search Suggestions in Search Engines
Head to Google and start to search for your own products. What would you enter? When you start to input your query, take note what Google is suggesting to complete the search input. This will give you even more ideas for varying ways to enter in your keywords. Say you are trying to think of keywords for “Art Prints” instead of just entering “Art Prints” as your only keyword you can also target things like: art prints online, art prints for sale, art prints + your location, and more. Utilizing the search engine itself can give you some creative ideas for how else to structure a keyword.
Still have questions about finding keywords for your site? Let’s chat! I’d love to help get your site in tip top SEO performing shape.
